• Progress in Superconductivity and Cryogenics
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.86-90
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• 2007

The cryoprobe used in cryosurgery should be fabricated in milimeter-order size for its practical usage. In general a miniature J-T(Joule-Thomson) refrigerator is applied to a cryoprobe. In case of the miniature J-T refrigerator, the mass flow rate of working fluid is small due to considerable friction in a minute flow path. For that reason, the miniature J-T refrigerator has a limited cooling power. To obtain the large cooling power from the J-T refrigerator, the refrigerator should have large mass flow rate and effective J-T temperature drop. These quantities are closely related to the geometry of the heat exchanger and the expansion nozzle in a cryoprobe, and are contradictory. The large mass flow rate leads to the small J-T temperature drop and vice versa in the miniature J-T refrigerator. Therefore, the optimal design of a cryoprobe to achieve maximum cooling power at fixed tube size and fixed operating temperature is required. This paper presents the design procedure of such case.

• Progress in Superconductivity and Cryogenics
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.55-59
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• 2009

Miniature Joule-Thomson refrigerators have been widely used for rapid cooling of infrared detectors, probes of cryosurgery, thermal cameras, missile homing head and guidance system, due to their special features of simple configuration, compact structure and rapid cool-down characteristics. The thermodynamic performance of J-T refrigerator highly depends on the hydraulic and heat transfer characteristics of the recuperative heat exchanger. The typical recuperative heat exchanger of the J-T refrigerator has the double helical tube and fin configuration. In this study, effectiveness-NTU approach was adopted to predict the thermodynamic behaviors of the heat exchanger for the J-T refrigerator. The thermodynamic properties from the REFPROP were used to account the real gas effects of the gas. The results show the effect of the operating conditions on the performance of the heat exchanger and refrigerator for the given heat exchanger. The influences of mass flow rate and the supply pressure on the effectiveness of heat exchanger and the ideal cooling capacity are discussed in details.

• Progress in Superconductivity and Cryogenics
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.41-45
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• 2010

Miniature Joule-Thomson refrigerators have been widely used for rapid cooling of infrared detectors, optoelectronic device, and integrated circuits of micro electronics. The typical J-T refrigerator consists of the recuperative heat exchanger with the double helical tube and fin configuration, J-T nozzle, a mandrel, Dewar and a compressed gas storage bottle. In this study, to predict the thermodynamic behaviors of the refrigerator with a compressed gas storage bottle during the cool-down time, numerical study of transient characteristics for a J-T refrigerator was developed. A simplified transient one.dimensional model of the momentum and energy equations was simultaneously solved to consider the thermal interactions of the each component of the refrigerator. To account for effects of the thermal mass of the solid, the heat capacities of the tube, fins, mandrel and Dewar are considered. The results show the charged gas pressure of the gas storage bottle has significant effects on the performance of the J-T refrigerator. At the elevated gas pressure of the gas storage bottle, the large capacity of the compressed gas storage does not need to get the fast cool-down performance of the J-T refrigerator in the cool-down stage.

• Progress in Superconductivity and Cryogenics
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.60-63
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• 2009

Most J-T (Joule-Thomson) refrigerators use a Giaque-Hampson type heat exchanger due to its excellent thermal performance and compactness. The cryoprobe (cryosurgical probe) treating prostate cancer usually has a dimension of 17 gauge (1.6 mm diameter), so it does not have enough space to bear a Giaque-Hampson type heat exchanger. In this paper, the triplet heat exchanger is adopted as the heat exchanger of cryoprobe, and the performance is investigated with an experimental test. The result shows that the triplet heat exchanger can be substituted for Giaque-Hampson type heat exchanger in the application of cryosurgery.